The Death of Innocents An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, Helen Prejean. (Paperback 0679759484)

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The Death of Innocents An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions
Author: Helen Prejean

Sister Helen Prejean was a little-known Roman Catholic nun from Louisiana when in 1993, her first book Dead Man Walking, challenged the way we look at the death penalty in America. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Now in The Death of Innocents, she takes us to the new ... more »moral edge of the debate on capital punishment: What if we’re killing the wrong man?

Dobie Gillis Williams, an indigent black man from rural Louisiana with an IQ of 65, was accused of a brutal rape and murder. Williams’s inept defense counsel, later disbarred for unethical practice for unrelated cases, allowed the prosecution’s incredibly contrived scenario of the crime to go unchallenged. Less than two years after Williams’s execution in January 1999, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to kill a man so mentally disabled.

In 1986, Joseph Roger O’Dell was convicted of murder in Virginia despite highly circumstantial evidence from a jailhouse snitch. For twelve years, O’Dell sought DNA testing on the forensic evidence, which he claimed would exonerate him, but the courts refused. After his execution on July 23, 1997, the state destroyed the evidence. As a result, its conviction of O’Dell could never be scrutinized.

“The reader of this book will be the first ‘jury’ with access to all the evidence the trial juries never saw,” says Prejean, who accompanied both men to their executions. By using the withheld evidence to reconstruct the crimes for which these two men were convicted, Prejean shows how race, prosecutorial ambition, poverty, election cycles, and publicity play far too great a role in determining who dies and who lives.

Prejean traces the historical underpinnings of executions in this country, demonstrating that it is no accident that over 80 percent of executions in the past twenty-five years have been carried out in the former slave states. She also raises profound constitutional questions about an appeals system that decides most death cases on procedural grounds without ever examining their merits.

To date, 113 wrongfully convicted persons have been freed from death row. If constitutional protections -- due process, assistance of counsel, and equal justice under law -- are truly being respected, how is it possible that these people were convicted in the first place? And how can we accept a system so rife with error?

Sister Helen Prejean takes us with her on her spiritual journey as she accompanies two possibly innocent human beings to their deaths at the hands of the state. Prejean implores us to reflect on what is perhaps the core moral issue of the death penalty debate: Honorable people disagree about the justice of executing the guilty, but can anyone argue about the injustice of executing the innocent?

ISBN-13: 9780679759485
ISBN-10: 0679759484
Publication Date: 1/24/2006
Pages: 336
Rating:

Currently 3.1/5 Stars.

3.1 stars, based on 7 ratings

Publisher: Vintage
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 2
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Roxanne B. (rocksburn) reviewed The Death of Innocents : An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions on 1/3/2009

This book takes you into the depths of the legal system from Sister Helen Prejean's experiences. The book does get into the tedious legal aspects of the system that sort of lost me while reading but the human side of this book brought tears to my eyes. It gives amazing statistics about the financial status and lack of legal representation of people on death row. Sister Helen draws you into the lives of several people that have been put to death by lethal injection all the way through to their final departure from this world. She also tells their stories from the eyes of the prisoners, their families and also the victim's families. This is a gut wrenching book that is not for the faint of heart. If you've ever questioned your beliefs about putting a human to death by execution, this is a great read.

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